AFF Correspondence 2023: Ride or Die, or, The The Bikeriders Review

Director and writer Jeff Nichols is all about the vibe in The Bikeriders, his adaptation of Danny Lyon’s photo-book following the daily ins and outs of a Chicago biker gang in the 60’s.

In the post-screening Q&A, Nichols said he aimed to capture a feeling rather than pull together a one-to-one recreation of the biker gang Lyon covered. And The Bikeriders does indeed end up feeling like—well, a feeling, rather than an expansive look into the inner workings of a group of aimless men looking for connection.

With a story that brings together characters with names like Cockroach (Emory Cohen), Wahoo (Beau Knapp), and Zipco (Michael Shannon), The Bikeriders ultimately centers on one promising member of the group: Benny, played by one of Hollywood’s bigger rising names, Austin Butler. Benny is a cool, collected, gruff, and—of course—softer than he looks member of the Chicago Vandals biker gang led by Johnny (Tom Hardy). While the early days of the club involve just a bunch of guys dicking around on their motorcycles, Benny meets the film’s other central figure, Kathy, played by Jodie Comer, a girl who gets a front seat to the evolution and eventual dissolution of the Chicago Vandals.

Told through a series of interviews held by Danny (Mike Faist, standing in for the real Lyon), The Bikeriders tries to juggle the interrelationships between Benny, Kathy, and Johnny while also focusing on the general story of the biker gang. It’s a gambit from Nichols that hampers what he does best in his other films, which is bringing an up close spotlight to people on the fringes of American society.

Nichols flip flops between the conflicting paths Benny faces—pursuing a normal life with Kathy or becoming Johnny’s successor as leader in the gang—all the while trying to wrangle the other 12 or so characters and overall depiction of the rise and fall of a biker club. It’s a lot to cover in a right under two hour movie.

Nichols’ succeeds at finding the buried humanity of people pushed to the outside, including in the scenes we spend with the general biker gang members as they talk about their pasts or their general musings on daily life. It helps that Nichols has the most stacked cast he’s ever worked with up to now—which is saying a lot when you look at some of his earlier movies. Ever a filmmaker with an eye for good character actors, Nichols fills The Bikeriders chock full of them. Eachach brings a bit of their own respective weirdness or charm to their small bit parts, with standouts being Cohen’s fuzzy Cockroach or Toby Wallace as a new member of the gang who grows increasingly more menacing.

The film could probably do well to take a more observant look at the greater implications and interactions of this gang. It could also have succeeded with a distinct focus on the tug and pull Benny feels between the wants and needs of Kathy, his love, and Johnny, his mentor. But The Bikeriders decides to try both, resulting in both sides of the story getting the short end of the stick when it comes to emotional investment.

Hardy, Comer, and Butler can’t quite find their characters’ own unique traits throughout their emotional sparring. Hardy has to do a lot more with his face than his words in this film, which works out well in certain scenes as we get a glimpse into the portrait of a man desperately trying to keep his legacy going on. Butler too has to rely more on the power of silence with his character, intentionally portraying a bit of a blank space according to Nichols in order to show a character who’s a receptacle for other people’s aspirations and dreams. It’s an interesting idea but one that doesn’t really get executed in the end.

Ultimately, all three of our main characters are either blank or an iteration of a character we’ve seen in other films. Comer brings an enlivening Midwest charm to Kathy (and also a pretty damn good impression of the real life Kathy, proven by the real-life recording of the character that Nichols shared with the audience). But her character is ultimately relegated to the dismayed partner upset with her boyfriend/husband’s life choices that we’ve seen before, specifically those found in gangster/crime films. With no discernable beating heart in any of the three main characters, it’s hard to get invested in their triangle.

Helping this all go down a bit easy is the fact that The Bikeriders looks and sounds good—something you can always rely on with a Nichols film. Cinematographer Adam Stone excels at putting us into the visual minds of the Vandals. Every interior is alive with activity while also coming across as constricting and claustrophobic. When we go on a ride with our crew, Stone’s canvas expands and captures the lush beauty and freedom of the farm roads and understated Midwest highways that bring so much freedom to our characters. In its best moments of visual clarity, Nichols does what Lyon’s book did: capture the feeling of being in a Midwest biker gang, dirt and all.

In The Bikeriders, you won’t learn much about what a biker gang does or what truly led to the Vandals’ downfall, but you will be struck by its sense of time and place. You won’t learn a lot about the characters you see on screen or their deeper wants, needs, or motivations, but you will find yourself wanting to hang out with them to learn more about them. The catch is that The Bikeriders is hampered by what Nichols is able to show and tell us. Some images and moments may stick with you, but as a whole you may end up placing this on this coffee table of your mind —an intriguing, yet ultimately tucked away piece of work.